BMC’s pro racer Titouan Carod raced the all-new Fourstroke 01 to a win at the 2022 UCI World Cup XCO in Val di Sole, Italy. We met up with him at the Fourstroke launch and snapped these photos, the only difference being he swapped off the prototype SRAM Eagle direct-mount rear derailleur and new cassette he was racing with. Here’s a look at the rest of his bike…
The Fourstroke 01 bikes all come with BMC’s own stem and flat bars, but like many pros, Tituoan runs a slammed cockpit.
An Extralite reverse rise stem, Carbon-Ti top cap, and Tune carbon bar save grams and get him lower in front. The perfectly flat top cap comes standard, so you can get your own cockpit as low as possible, too.
MTB90 ultralight foam grips are just 30g/pair (claimed). Tituoan runs the older Twistloc remote shock lockout with the release lever. The newer ones, as spec’d on the Rockshox-equipped stock bikes, simply twists in either direction, which eliminates any accidental releases from your thumb hitting it on rough terrain or when reaching for the dropper.
A Prologo NDR saddle sits atop a custom silver anodized dropper post. The completely integrated dropper offers a lot of real estate, and the silver color was done for team bikes to help BMC show off their proprietary design.
Word is it worked, with announcers noticing the post dropping on its own during the race coverage and calling it out repeatedly.
A lot of European pros, particularly the French, roll on custom built Duke Racing Wheels. The lightest of the rims come in 26mm, 28mm, and 30mm internal widths, allowing them to build front- and rear-specific wheels based on the desired ride quality. While most of us want wider rims these days for 2.4″ tires, the top pros are still running narrower treads to save weight:
Tituoan was riding 29×2.25 Vittoria Mezcal tires, but the stock bikes come with 2.35″ tires.
As a SRAM sponsored team, it’s no surprise he’s running Time pedals since SRAM acquired them. Fortunately, the Time ATAC 12 are some of the lightest XC MTB pedals on the market.
The Blackbox power meter chainring is new, though, and not available yet. The current consumer version uses a power meter spider with four-bolt chainring. These apparently one-piece versions may or may not have replaceable chainrings (fingers crossed that they do, unlike the current road versions for Red and Force). But at least they seem to have a replaceable battery.
Nothign new to see here, folks…
Rear suspension is handled by a Rockshox SIDLuxe with remote lockout. A Zefal bottle cage (and the spare holes) are filled with rainbow anodized bolts to match those on the Level TLM disc brake hardware.
The final unique touch are these (surprisingly expensive Race Grip Snipptec dampers, which he says reduce vibrations. The brand makes “comfort” kits with stick-on dampers for your bar and stem, with additional kits adding others to cover suspension wheels, and frame, too. Each one claims to be tuned to the specific part of the bike it’s going on.
Huge thanks to Titouan for showing us his bike and BMC for the opportunity to ride with him.
